Honorable Preye Influence Oseke, representing Southern Ijaw Federal constituency in Bayelsa State, sponsored a Motion during plenary yesterday, July 23, on the urgent need to appoint a substantive coordinator for the presidential amnesty program for the Niger Delta region.
The Motion was aimed at bringing awareness on the negative effect the absence of a substantive coordinator is creating in actualizing the main purpose of the Niger Delta amnesty program.
According to Hon. Preye Oseke who is the sponsor of the motion, the presidential amnesty program has been unable to achieve its ultimate objective of reintegrating armed militants and all ex-agitators back into the communities with benefits such has opportunities in education as well as financial stipends to those who have up their weapons.
He said that the absence of a substantive coordinator for the programme is creating a vacuum that makes it difficult for the programme to be managed and brought to a logical end.
Oseke, was concerned that since 28th Friday 2020, the erstwhile coordinator of the presidential programme Professor Charles Quaker Dokubo was suspended by the president due to numerous allegations and pettisions surrounding the programme which prompted the National Security Adviser (NSA) to set up a Technical committee to look into the activities of the programme.
He observed that the Programme’s inability to meet its demand has culminated in several civil disorders including the blocking of the East-West road by ex-agitators at different times.
He added that a technical committee mandated to oversee the programme has in no little way slowed down the activities of the programme. He stated that the ongoing research projects by the international development agencies have identified that amnesty initiatives fail and fall apart when neither accompanied by meaningful and durable reintegration nor deep-seated socio-economic problems that are tackled simultaneously.
He further added that a recent publication of the Niger Delta Dialogue Secretariat, a European Union-funded research project, shows that insecurity in the Niger Delta region is caused by militancy, cultism, sea piracy, communal disputes, kidnapping for ransom and electoral violence are vices that could be checked by meaningfully engaging the youths of the area, with a specific call on the Presidential Amnesty Program to live up to its mandate of conclusive reintegration of ex-agitators.
The lawmaker stressed the need to address the motion with urgency and worried that the youths of the region are gradually resorting to unlawful means of agitation for the development of the region including militancy, a development that is capable of undermining the peace, security, order and good governance thus jeopardizing already-gained mileage in institutionalizing an unencumbered economy of the nation.
If there should be a fresh outbreak of heightened insecurity in the region, the security apparatus of our country will be avoidably stretched beyond measure.
The lawmaker proposed a resolution by urging the House committee on National Security to interface with relevant agencies of government in ensuring that a substantive coordinator for the Presidential Amnesty Program for the Niger Delta region is urgently appointed in order to dowse the already-growing tension in the region.
He also proposed and urged the National Security Adviser to the President, and the Chief of Defence Staff, as matter of urgent national security concern, to advise the President to appoint a Coordinator for the Presidential Amnesty Program for the Niger Delta region with a clear mandate to optimally actualize the object of the programme, thus bringing it to a successful conclusion like other disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes in other parts of the world.
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